Crime,unemployment, and social structures of accumulation: An inquiry into historical contingency

This article examines whether prior inconsistency in findings about the impact of unemployment on crime is the result of historical contingency caused by changes in the social structures of accumulation (SSAs) associated with the development of twentieth-century U.S. capitalism. We explore this question by comparing the relationship between official measures of unemployment and the crimes of burglary, robbery, assault, and homicide during four phases of recent U.S. economic development identified by SSA theorists: economic exploration from 1933 to 1947, economic consolidation from 1948 to 1966, economic decay from 1967 to 1979, and a new period of exploration from 1980 to 1992. We propose that the unemployment-crime (U-C) relationship is shaped not merely by the fact of unemployment, but rather by its social meaning within developmental stages of social structures of accumulation. Time-series analysis of the U-C relationship within each SSA stage from 1933 to 1992 supports our hypothesis that periods of structural unemployment will be characterized by a stronger U-C relationship than those in which unemployment is primarily frictional. We then validate the periodization of shifts in the U-C relationship suggested by SSA theory by applying time-varying parameter analysis to the entire series from 1933 to 1992. On the basis of these findings we conclude that crime control policies and future research into the relationship between unemployment and crime should take into consideration the historically contingent nature of the U-C relationship.     

试论离婚损害赔偿司法实践中的举证难问题

离婚损害赔偿诉讼是近年来才出现的诉讼形态,如何真正地保护在离婚诉讼中无过错方的合法权益,实现惩治过错方的立法目的,必须把握好证据这一关。但在司法实践中,往往面临无过错方举证难的问题,从而制约了离婚损害赔偿制度的有效实现。为此,笔者认为,要解决离婚损害赔偿诉讼中举证难的问题,一是针对隐秘的婚外同居,要着重运用证人证言来连环证明事实,也可根据民诉讼法有关规定,申请由法院负责收集;二是针对受害者身受的家庭暴力,要强化各种证据证明力;三是针对虐待遗弃行为,应充分运用证人证言来证明事实。而从根本上说,要解决举证难问题,立法上应对无过错一方举证问题有特别的考虑,对举证责任要求不能过于苛刻,从而更好地保护无过错方的合法权益。     

Retrieving the Hidden Meaning: Jain Commentarial Techniques and the Art of Memory

One of the peculiar characteristics of the vast body of Jain commentarial literature is the primacy given to artha, meaning, over sūtra, the root text itself. It is the task of the commentator—or, in a pedagogical context, the teacher—to retrieve and explain a text’s true, hidden meaning, which often appears to stretch and even contradict its apparent meaning. This article examines the interpretive processes in one of the most important Jain commentaries on monastic discipline, the Bṛhatkalpabhāṣya attributed to the sixth-century CE Śvetāmbara Jain exegete Saṅghadāsa. An examination of passages where the commentator claims to uncover the real—but sometimes less-than-apparent—meaning of monastic rules enables us to detect the interpretive moves involved and the underlying assumptions about the nature of text and the work of commentary. I argue that this commentarial tradition presupposes particular practices of memory, and a degree of internalizing the traditional hermeneutical methods, on the part of a monastic practitioner who wants to understand the text correctly and live according to its true meaning.     

高校管理行为及其可诉性探讨

高校管理行为是高等院校在享有教育管理权利,履行教育管理义务时所实施的行为。近年来,有些高校在实施高校管理行为中侵犯其它法律主体合法权益的事情常有发生,加上我国现有的法律法规对该行为的法律性质规定不明确,由此,产生纠纷后,法律主体能否提起诉讼,如何提起诉讼等问题,没有法律依据。本文主要就有关高校管理行为的法律性质及可诉性问题进行探讨,并以求教于法学界同仁。     

Paths to destruction: the lives and crimes of two serial killers

Although research into the phenomenon of serial murder has revealed that serial killers frequently do not fit the initially described paradigm in terms of their physical and psychological profiles, backgrounds, and motives to kill, the media continues to sensationalize the figures of such killers and the investigators who attempt to analyze them on the basis of aspects of their crimes. Although the so-called "typical" profile of the serial murderer has proven accurate in some instances, in many other cases the demographics and behaviors of these killers have deviated widely from the generalized assumptions. This report details two unusual cases in which five and eight murders were committed in upstate New York. The lives and crimes of these offenders illustrate the wide spectrum of variations in the backgrounds, demographics, motivations, and actions witnessed among serial murderers, and highlight the limitations and dangers of profiling based on generalities.     

自由与民主:宪法诉讼的价值理念探幽

自由是宪法诉讼的核心价值 ,自由价值之中镌刻着深刻的民主价值思想。宪法诉讼的自由价值表现在 :1 矫正和修饰多数形成机制本身所存在的瑕疵 ,弥合宪法既定约束和现实多数之间的冲突 ,拓展宪法中关于自由范围和内容的规定 ;2 维护公民的“反向自由” ,防御政府的“正向侵犯” ;确认公民的“正向自由” ,救济立法缺位而引起的权利虚置 ,最终实现公民“反向自由”和“正向自由”的结合。宪法诉讼自由价值的民主性表现在如下层面 :1 宪法诉讼机制对自由价值的诉求和保障实现了民主的现代转型 ,即由古代的纯粹民主向现代的自由民主之转变 ;2 反向自由的宪法定位和正向自由的个案满足使民主和自由之间保持了持久的张力和不断的平衡 ,从而使自由主义民主具备了得以实现的现实基础。     

Means Discrimination: An Investigation into the Ideology of Constitutional Equality

Constitutional "equal protection" has a technical meaning that orients legal thinking. Its roots are in Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) and the relationship between separation of the races in schools, theaters, and other public places and the guarantee of material or physical equality. Brown v. The Board of Education (1954), in eliminating separation from constitutional protection also eliminated the constitutional promise of material equality.
The approach to this ideology turns away from outcomes in order to get to the meanings, standards and conceptual parameters that influence the application of constitutional discourse to discrimination against those with inadequate means.     

Middlemen of the Law: An Ethnographic Inquiry into the English Legal Profession

The accomplishments of empirical research are often presented in a context that fails to show the process by which the results came about. This article examines the problems, hitches, and struggles encountered in a research project carried out on the English bar. And emphasis is given to the difficulty of tackling hitherto unexplored occupations that have had a long history of resisting research.